Breathe no more
by Pandora.Rosier
Summary: As Severus grieves for Lily he begins to wonder who he truly is inside. Oneshot


**Disclaimer**: Unfortunately i own neither Harry Potter nor Severus Snape. If i did own Severus Snape then eternal hapiness would be mine. But alas, i do not.

**A.n// **This was wrote simply to fend off boredom and to keep this from going rounf my head for hours. Therefore it is most definately not perfect. Constructive critism is greatly appreciated.

**Breathe no more  
****By Eternal Damnation**

_**I've been looking in the mirror for so long.  
That I've come to believe my souls on the other side.**_

Spinners end was silent. A graveyard, tucked away in a forgotten corner of the world, where the occupants were not decaying corpses but rather dead dreams and abandoned hopes, cast aside as each was brutally ripped away. The screams were over. All that remained of them was the memory of the echoes, which seemed to have permeated the walls themselves. The shouts, the screams, the pleading and sobbing. Each had disintegrated into nothingness, and yet were more real because of it. Everything was gone now. The past had been erased from the building as if that would erase all of the memories. The old muggle TV, the bottles of brandy which littered the floor, the stench of fags, old food wrappers, tattered and torn furniture. All gone, leaving a barren cell, with just a chair, a bookcase and a small table. But the gloom remained. That ever pressing despair, which had hung like a blanket over the house, making the air heavy, difficult to inhale. A sorrow at what the house had witnessed.

The ghost remained. Alive, but dead inside. Heart beating, lungs expanding, limbs working and yet dead for how could life remain amidst the despair which was an iron fist around his mind. A booted foot upon the staircase, a hollow sound echoing through the room. The whisper of robes, which billowed through the air like oil in water. His face was downcast, an unhealthy flash of white amongst greasy black hair, an expressionless mask, midnight eyes empty. The funeral march of his footsteps was all he could think about, for his mind had diminished into a void, for thought meant remembering, and remembering meant agony.

Severus reached the landing, and stopped, his eyes sliding sightlessly over the paisley wallpaper and dark carpet. Windowless, the sunlight didn't reach the hallway, unless the doors were open. The bedroom doors were all shut tight, hiding their contents from him and leaving him in darkness. At the far end of the hallway the bathroom door was ajar, letting a meagre sliver of light fall across the wall and floor. For a long moment he just looked blankly at it, and then, with no clear destination of purpose in mind he moved towards it.

The doorknob was cool under his fingertips, a sensation he barely felt, as it pushed the door open, more light falling mockingly upon him. Again he stopped, unclear as to why he had entered the bathroom. His one purpose now was to find something to fill each torturously long second. Anything was better than just sitting there. At first he looked only at the window, and the greying net curtain, studying the pattern of the net with more interest than was natural. He moved forwards and light flashed in his eyes, reflected off of the mirror. He turned slowly and stopped, looking at his reflection.

It mocked him. His own blank face ridiculed his anguish, for it was a false image. What was it that everyone saw when they looked at him? Certainly not Severus. No, they saw only what they wanted to see. A greasy haired, hooked nosed, ugly traitor. Ugly, pathetic, weak, traitorous. The longer he stared the more viciously his thoughts assaulted him, hurling words like knives at him. He stared and stared, longing to see something else, longing to see the true Severus and yet instead the reflection was beginning to get more and more like a stranger and completely different person. Slowly the foreign features began to distort. The bland expression, hardening into one of fury. His fists curled as he willed the mirror to show the truth and yet nothing happened. The person in the glass was becoming more of a stranger, less like him with every passing second. But....

But...

But what if the reflection was truly him. What if he had simply been fooling himself all these years into believing himself to be something he was not? What if the stranger was not a stranger but himself? An ugly traitor, doomed to be so for all time, blind to his own faults.

_**  
Oh the little pieces falling, shatter.**_

_**Shards of me,  
To sharp to put back together.  
To small to matter,  
But big enough to cut me into so many little pieces.**_

With a scream of rage and denial his fist connected with the mirror, which shattered around his hand in a ripple of motion. The crash of splintering glass obliterated the silence, as shards fell, raining down. He remained still, eyes blazing and after a long moment the silence regained its hold, although the shattering of the glass still rang in his ears. Slowly he brought his hand down, still clenched in a fist, breathing heavily. Crimson teardrops spattered his palm, red roses of a white canvas and he stared, morbidly fascinated by the sight of his own blood, which continued to spread over his hand, dripping off and through the crevices between his fingers. He felt no pain. A rush of adrenaline had dulled everything, and a roar filled his ears, his heart pounding furiously.

It was dead. That thing in the mirror, whatever it was - certainly not himself – it was gone and could torture him no more. And yet he too had been shattered. With her death he had been broken beyond repair. All of those tiny pieces of him had been lost forever and he had no way of recovering them. They were so small, so miniscule that they surely couldn't do him any harm and yet. With them removed he felt as though everything had been destroyed, leaving him as empty as the shells left behind after a Dementor's kiss. His very identity had been destroyed, not just by her death but by all of the others.

He had not truly realized it but every time he donned the deatheater robes and killed another innocent, a piece of him died. Every time a flash of green left his wand and he was forced to watch yet another fall by his hand he left a piece of him there. All the women, the children, unable to understand what was going on, fear their very last companion. He couldn't help but wonder what would happen when there was no pieces of him left.

_**  
If I try to touch her,  
And I bleed,  
I bleed,  
And I breathe,  
I breathe no more.**_

Lily, his precious Lily. Gone. Crushed. How could he possibly hope to continue without her. In his mind he saw her face, her red hair, glittering in the sunlight, her smile which revealed her very soul. Gentle words, gentle touch, gentle heart. She was his light to the darkness. She was everything. But no. She had chosen Potter and in doing so had broken him. He had reached out to her and in doing so had weakened himself. This pain – he had told himself never to love, never to risk his emotions like that. He should have listened to himself. Then he would not be feeling this agony.__

Take a breath and I try to draw from my spirits well.  
Yet again you refuse to drink like a stubborn child.  
Lie to me,  
Convince me that I've been sick forever.  
And all of this,  
Will make sense when I get better.

They were liars. All of them. Who were they to judge him? They knew nothing. Not the torment of living in the shadow of the one you hate. They didn't know what it felt like to watch in silence as his own mother was broken down, little-by-little, until she was just a shadow. And him, a small boy curled in a corner, unable to help. How dare they judge him, just because he was willing to do anything to help her. They were fools, blind to anything they did not want to see. He was evil, a traitor, a deatheater. That's all that mattered. Not once did they look any further, even though he practically shoved the truth in their face.

Slowly he lowered himself to the floor, robes spreading about him like ink, his left hand holding his bloody right hand. He rested his head against the wall, displaying the curve of his throat. He shut his eyes against the world and willed it all to be a dream. Let him wake up a different person, in a different body. Let this life be just a nightmare. Dumbledore.

The word was like poison to him. The old man wanted him to repay his 'debt'. A life for a life. Severus killed Lily and so in return he must protect the boy. His lips curled with hatred. He did not kill her. He didn't even know who the prophecy referred to. If he had had any idea then he would never of said anything. Yet Dumbledore wanted him to drown in guilt. He wanted for Severus to be crippled by it so that he was easy to manipulate. Was the old man so spiteful that he would make Severus believe that he was born evil, doomed to betray and murder those whom her loved?

_**  
I know the difference,  
Between myself and my reflection.  
I just can't help but to wonder,  
Which of us do you love.  
**_

But Severus knew better. He saw Dumbledore for what he was and he alone knew the difference between the Severus in the mirror and himself. He could see the goodness inside himself, buried deep but still there. He knew that that thing in the mirror was just something masquerading as himself and would never be a true portrayal. Only Lily had seen the true him.

But did Dumbledore want to know who he was? Dumbledore was most likely glad to have another pawn to manipulate. He didn't want the potions master who loved Lily Evans. That man was no use to him. No, he wanted the Deatheater who had helped to murder a wife and mother, as well as countless others.

Severus let out a breath and forced the thoughts to the back of his mind. He didn't need to dwell on his guilt. Even when he didn't think of it, it would be there gnawing at his insides. He had killed the woman he loved. And for what? Absolutely nothing. He loved her.

"Always," He whispered into the silence.

_**  
So I bleed,  
I bleed,  
And I breathe,  
I breathe now...  
Bleed,  
I bleed,  
And I breathe,  
I breathe,  
I breathe-  
I breathe no more.**_


End file.
